Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
My pounding heart fills my ears while I’m airborne, and the northern wall rushes up to meet me. I bend my knees to absorb the coming impact, then run the second my boots hit the stonework so the momentum doesn’t kill me. I hurtle forward and narrowly avoid falling on my face on the wet expanse of cobblestone as I sprint toward the back of the venin in crimson.
There’s forty feet between us.
Thirty. Commotion erupts from the base of the tower, but I focus on the dark wielder and the staff he carries in his right hand.
“They are evacuating the weapons by foot,” Glane says from somewhere above me.
Good. My lungs burn, but I breathe a little easier. Quinn will be safe.
Another set of footsteps joins mine, and a flash of metal sparks in the corner of my eye. Aetos catches up on my right, half his face drenched in blood, bearing his own dagger and a shield half his size.
Shit. That’s not good.
Twenty. I channel my rage, rejecting any notion of fear, and draw one of my alloy-hilted daggers from the sheath at my arm in preparation to strike. We’re almost there—
The dark wielder pivots, whipping to face us with an unnatural speed even I can’t match, and swings his staff in our direction. Fire erupts, barreling toward us in a deadly stream, and I weigh our options for all of a millisecond as we skid to a halt. It hits? We die. Jump? We die.
“You will not burn!” Glane demands.
Fuck, I really didn’t want to have to do this, but I mentally open the door to my childhood home and flood my body with her power.
“Get—” Aetos starts to yell.
“Get behind me!” I shout, ripping the shield from his grip. His eyes flare wide, and he lets go. We have seconds, so I flip the shield, then slam its flat top between the row of stones at our feet and drop behind it, keeping my hand on the leather strap.
Aetos jumps behind me as power rushes into my fingers so quickly I clench my teeth to keep from screaming. Heat surrounds us and the leather hardens in my grip as the shield turns to stone. Fire roars, blazes, flows around us. We are the rock in the river, demanding the water part.
The heat dissipates as the blast ends, and Aetos dives to the left and throws. An alloy-hilted dagger sails from his hand and I rise, clutching my own.
The dark wielder’s expression of shock remains permanent as he desiccates a few feet away and falls off the wall.
One down, but the guards are missing from the top of the turret, and I see a flash of purple disappear into the tower. Worse, another dressed in crimson strides along the eastern wall.
Aetos jumps to his feet and draws his remaining dagger. “I’ll take that one. You get the one in the tower.” He glances at the stone shield, then breaks into a run, and I follow, sprinting as fast as I can. “And we’re going to talk about whatever the fuck that just was later,” he shouts over his shoulder, but I’ve already passed him, using lesser magic to boost my speed.
Cruth roars, sweeping from the sky to the city below, but Draithus is just like other Poromish cities, designed to keep dragons from landing within its narrow streets.
Two women carrying crying toddlers stumble out of the turret’s doorway, horror etched on their faces. The taller one’s gaze swings to mine as I reach them. “You have to help her! We got lost and went into the wrong tower and she—”
“Go west!” I shout, pointing in the direction I’ve just come from as Aetos runs past to intercept the other dark wielder. “And run.”
They nod and do just that.
I fling myself through the doorway into the tower and blink, struggling to adjust to the dimmer lighting as I descend the spiral staircase down and down and down, looking for whomever they left behind.
“Where are you?” A raspy roar of frustration fills the tower and my heart surges into my throat as I round the bend of the third story.
Purple robes spin as the venin turns on the landing, swiping a green-tipped dagger at Quinn as she flashes in and out of space, appearing in front of him only to disappear within seconds and pop up somewhere else. There are two of her—no, three—circling the dark wielder.
She isn’t here. She’s projecting. Relief nearly cuts me at the knees.
I pause just out of sight and lean over the railing to scan the stairs below, but I don’t see her. She’s probably buildings away with Felix, setting up a new armory. I adjust my grip on the dagger, then creep down the steps to get within throwing distance.
Wait. The Quinn a handful of stairs beneath me has her labrys strapped to her back and is actually moving closer to the infuriated dark wielder who thrashes wildly with his dagger while other versions of Quinn dance around him, serving as the diversion.